How often does July have 5 Fridays 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays? - Answers

This happens any time that July 1st falls on a Friday. There is a popular piece of email that claims this event is so rare it happens only once in 823 years. This is absurd, and is a way of poking fun at people who give in too easily to what they read on-line. In years which July 1st falls on a Friday, Christmas always falls on a Sunday. You know from casual observation that years begin on different days. January 1 2010 was a Friday, January 1 2011 was a Saturday, and January 1 2012 will be a Sunday. 2012 is a "leap year" (really February 29 is an intercalary day), but the day is not added until the end of February. After a year containing an intercalary day, the next January 1 skips ahead two weekdays. January 1 of 2013 will be Tuesday, and so on. The rest of the year follows along with regularity. A little casual figuring will show you that Friday, July 1 will happen 5 times between 2/23/11 and the year 2040. Hardly a breathtaking novelty. Doubt everything. Gaps between such days are usually 5, 6 or 11 years, and the pattern of gaps will change when you have those infrequent changes to "leap years" that serve to keep the Julian calendar in line with the sun. Ordinarily the gaps will follow a repeating pattern of years like this: 6 5 6 11 6 5 6 11